(Removes extra text, clarifies export earnings)
DHAKA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Bangladesh's government wants to
invest $8 billion over the next few years in infrastructure to
improve the economy and sought help from private sector to share
the cost which the government could not bear alone.
S A Samad, the executive chairman of the state run Board of
Investment (BOI) highlighted the figure while meeting with
business leaders from bilateral foreign chambers of commerce in
Bangladesh.
Bangladesh wants to become a 'middle income' country and to
double garment export earnings to $50 billion by 2021.
The World Bank last June upgraded Bangladesh to a 'lower
middle income' country from a previous classification of 'least
developed'.
"If government provides favourable support like credit from
banks or issuing sovereign bonds then the private sector can
come forward to invest," Masud Rahman, president of Canada
Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CanCham), told
Reuters after the meeting with Samad.
"Both government and private sectors are now quite capable
of financing such investment." he added.
"We told to the chief executive of BOI that entrepreneurs
can not reap benefit of country's attractive investment regime
because of mainly lack of infrastructure that include roads and
highways, ports, energy and gas," Masud said.
It was the first time that Bangladesh had organised a
meeting between government and all bilateral foreign chambers.
Garments are a key foreign-exchange earner for the South
Asian nation, whose low wages and duty-free access to Western
markets have helped make it the world's second largest apparel
exporter after China.